More Guns Less Crime

Category archives for More Guns Less Crime

A few years ago, the National Research Council reviewed the evidence on firearms and crime and concluded: There is no credible evidence that “right-to-carry” laws, which allow qualified adults to carry concealed handguns, either decrease or increase violent crime. Paul Cassell says that he finds plausible a new paper by Moody and Marvell that reanalyzes…

You may recall how Alex Robson demonstrated his ignorance of basic statistics and of climate research. Now he has written an op-ed in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph where he claims that there is no research at all that contradicts John Lott: Laws for the concealed carrying of guns are present in some form or another in…

I’ve discovered another one of John Lott’s attempts to rewrite history. Read on. Lott has written a response to Kevin Drum’s summary of Lott’s model changing antics. Here’s Drum: 1. Lott and two coauthors produced a statistical model (“Model 1″) that showed significant crime decreases when states passed concealed carry gun laws. 2. Back in…

Lott and Dabney have an op-ed in the Washington Times on concealed handguns in the workplace. As usual, Lott misrepresents the state of current research on firearms. Lott and Dabney write: Indeed, international data as well as data from across the United States indicate that criminals are much less likely to attack residents in their…

On his blog Lott has a sequence of postings telling a story of how the University of Chicago Federalist Society tried to organize a debate between himself and John Donohue, but Donohue kept backing out. What really happened bears little relation to the story Lott tells. In fact, Lott’s account is so misleading that the…

The NAS has responded to Lott’s attack on their panel on firearms research. I’m posting their whole letter: A Lott of misinformation The recent column by John Lott about the National Research Council’s project and report on improving scientific information and data on firearms [“Mountain of evidence shows gun control doesn’t work,” commentary, Jan. 8]…

One of the disagreements between Lott and the NAS panel is on the question of whether the models fit the data. Joel Horowitz explains the problem in Appendix D of the report. For people who don’t like equations, I’ll try to explain the issue with some pictures. The graphs below show straight lines (these are…

Lott has some more comments on the NAS panel report on firearms research. (Also posted at the Volokh Conspiracy.) Lott adds to his earlier claims that the panel was biased with this: In fact, the panel apparently originated with the desire from some to respond to the debate on that issue and to respond specifically…